美国大学对申请文书要求繁多，字数、主题等五花八门的要求往往令中国申请者头疼，很多同学闭门造车良久，却依然没有摸到门道。顶尖大学究竟青睐怎样富有深度和个性特点的优秀文书呢？作为惯例，《纽约时报》每年都会挑选并刊登美国大学优秀申请文书，棒呆留学从申请角度对这些范文进行了深入剖析，并对文书的写作提供了建议，给眼下正在为文书烦恼的学生一些启发。
My Dell hid my privilege and my Mac hid my financial need（戴尔和Mac，特权和财务需求之争）
（原文刊载于《纽约时报》2017.5.13）
作者：ZöeSottile 高中：Phillips Academy Andover 目标院校: Columbia University
原文：
The most exciting part was the laptop.
最让人兴奋的部分是那台笔记本电脑。
My mom grabbed the thick envelope out of my hands and read off the amenities associated with the Tang Scholarship to Phillips Academy: full tuition for all four years, a free summer trip, $20 a week for me to spend on all the Cheetos and nail polish my heart desired, and finally, a free laptop.
母亲从我手上夺过那个厚厚的信封，念出菲利普斯学院唐氏奖学金能给我带来的好处：整整四年的学费，一次免费夏季旅行，每周给我20美元，让我可以买我想要的奇多和指甲油，还有，一台免费的笔记本电脑。
I had never had a computer of my own before, and to me the prospect symbolized a world of new possibilities. I was the only student from my public middle school I knew to ever go to an elite boarding school, and it felt like being invited into a selective club. My first week at Andover, dazed by its glamour and newness, I fought my way to the financial aid office to pick up the laptop; I sent my mom a photo of me grinning and clutching the cardboard box. Back in my dorm room, I pulled out my prize, a heavy but functional Dell, and marveled at its sleek edges, its astonishing speed.
之前我从来没有拥有过属于自己的电脑，对我来说，这象征着一个充满全新可能性的世界。据我所知，我是我那个公立中学唯一一个去精英寄宿学校上学的学生，这感觉像是受到一个精英俱乐部的邀请。我在安多佛的第一个星期，它的光芒和新奇使我觉得眼花缭乱，我好不容易找到经济资助办公室，领到了我的笔记本电脑；我还发给我妈一张拿着纸箱咧嘴大笑的照片。回到我的宿舍，我取出我的奖励，一台很重但有许多功能的戴尔，并惊叹于它光滑的线条和惊人的处理速度。
But the love story of my laptop came clamoring to a halt. In the library, as I stumbled to negotiate a space to fit in, I watched my friends each pull out a MacBook. Each was paper-thin and seemingly weightless. And mine, heavy enough to hurt my back and constantly sighing like a tired dog, was distinctly out of place. My laptop, which I had thought was my ticket to the elite world of Andover, actually gave me away as the outsider I was.
但是我对戴尔的爱却戛然而止。在图书馆，当我笨拙地想找个地方坐下来，我看到我的每个朋友都拿出了一台MacBook。每一个都薄如纸片，看起来十分轻盈。而我的戴尔呢，立刻显得格格不入起来，重的好似能拖垮我的背，还像一只累坏的狗那样不停发出声响。本来我以为这台戴尔是我通向安多佛精英世界的入场券，但实际上却暴露了我是个外来者的事实。
For a long time, this was the crux of my Andover experience: always an outsider. When I hung out with wealthier friends, I was disoriented by how different their lives were from mine. While they spent summers in Prague or Paris, I spent mine mining the constellation of thrift stores around New Haven. The gap between full-scholarship and full-pay felt insurmountable.
很长一段时间内，这一直是我在安多佛体验中的一大难题：总是作为一个局外人。当我和比我有钱的朋友出去闲逛，我都能看到他们的生活和我的生活有多不同，这让我感觉不知所措。当他们整个暑假都在布拉格或者巴黎度假时，我在纽黑文附近的众多二手商店淘着旧货。全额奖学金和全自费之间的差距感觉无法跨越。
But I also felt like an outsider going to meetings for the full-scholarship affinity group. My parents attended college and grew up wealthier than I did, giving me cultural capital many of my full-scholarship friends never had access to. Moreover, I’m white and could afford occasional concert tickets or sparkly earrings. The laptop, carried by all full-scholarship students and coded with hidden meanings, pivoted my friends’ understandings of me. At home, I grew up middle class, then became the privileged prep school girl. But at Andover, suddenly, I was poor. Trying to reconcile these conflicting identities, I realized how complex and mutable class is. My class is connected to my parents’ income, but it’s also rooted in cultural knowledge and objects that are charged with greater meaning.
但是，就算去参加面向全奖生的活动，我依旧感觉自己像个局外人。我的父母上过大学，他们生长的家庭条件也比我好，这给了我一些和我一样拿全额奖学金的朋友从来没有的文化资本。此外，我是个白人，能够负担偶尔去听演唱会和买亮闪闪耳饰的费用。全奖生都拥有的那台被赋予隐含意义的戴尔笔记本，支撑起了我朋友对我的解读。在家里，我生长于中产阶级，然后还成为了幸运的预科生。但是在安多佛，突然我就变成了穷人。在试图协调这些矛盾的身份定位过程中，我意识到了，阶级这个东西是如何的复杂易变。我的阶级和我父母的收入有关，但它也根植于文化知识和那些被赋予了更宏大意义的事物中。
Which brings me back to the laptop: in the middle of my senior fall, my exhausted Dell broke and I couldn’t afford another. When I managed to borrow a slim Mac from my school, I felt the walls around me reorient. I hoped that now I wouldn’t have to think about the electric web of privilege and power every time I sent an email. Instead, I felt a new anxiety: I worried when I sat in the magnificent dining hall with my beautiful computer that I had lost an important part of my identity.
后来发生了一件事又让我的注意力回到这台笔记本：在高三的秋天，我那近乎报废的戴尔终于用坏了，我又没钱再买一台。当我成功从学校借了一台轻薄的Mac笔记本时，我感觉我周围的世界再次改变了。我那时希望，今后每当我发电邮时，不需要去考虑那张特权和权力的电子网。但是，我却感到了一种新的焦虑：我担心，当我带着我漂亮的笔记本坐在华丽的食堂时，我就已经丢失了自己身份的一个重要部分。
When I started at Andover, these constant dueling tensions felt like a trap: like I would never be comfortable anywhere. (The school sensed it too, and all full-financial aid students now receive MacBooks.) But maybe it’s the opposite of a trap. Maybe I’m culturally ambidextrous, as comfortable introducing a speaker on the stage of Andover’s century-old chapel as getting my nose pierced in a tattoo parlor in New Haven. My hyperawareness of how my Dell hid my privilege and how my Mac hid my financial need pushed me to be aware of what complicated stories were hiding behind my classmates’seemingly simple facades. I am a full-scholarship student who benefits from cultural, socioeconomic and racial privilege: my story isn’t easy, but it’s still mine.
当我刚到安多佛时，这些不停歇的紧张状态就像一个陷阱：待在哪里都无法自在（学校也有同感，现在所有全奖生拿到的都是MacBook了）。但是可能这又走向了完全不同的另一种陷阱。或许我在文化身份上是自由灵活的，站在安多佛百年礼堂的舞台介绍演讲者时，或在纽黑文的纹身店穿鼻环，我都是舒服自在的。我清楚地知道，戴尔笔记本掩盖了我的特权，Mac则掩盖了我的财务需要，这迫使我意识到，那掩藏在同学看起来简单的外表下，所存在的复杂故事。我是个受益于文化、社会经济和种族特权的全奖生：我的故事并不容易，但它依旧是我自己的故事。
Brian点评
这是一篇立足于“不平等性和阶级差异问题”的文章，在2017年的4篇范文中，这是第2篇类似题材。
Ze就读于一所极富盛名的美国顶尖高中，通过她自身的敏感感受，借助题目中几乎每个人都熟悉，却又没有深入挖掘的两个象征性符号“戴尔”和“Mac”，令人信服地展示了她在精英私立学校发现并接受自己阶级地位的个人斗争过程。她的关键转变体现在“试图调和这些冲突的身份”，以及“我意识到阶级是多么的复杂和可变”。
虽然作者年龄尚小，如此结构性问题对她而言比较宏大，但可贵的是，她并没有在行文中流露出自怨自艾、逃避或者不满于现实的情绪，相反，她特别客观而勇敢地带领读者一起踏上了对自身阶级认知的旅途，这是一个出色的尝试，尤其是她对自身处境感到自豪的结论，令人印象深刻，不落俗 套。
这篇文章中，作者运用了一个非常重要的写作技巧，那就是“主题重现”。无论是戴尔还是苹果电脑的反复出现，都在不经意间让读者与早期的故事情节联系起来，并帮助读者从中联想到不平等的概念。这是一种非常有用的文学技巧，它有助于将抽象的观点具象化，引发读者共鸣，对本文的成功功不可没。
当然，即便这篇文章有非常多的特点和成功之处，它所存在的问题也是显而易见的：作者过于强调社会和经济地位，未能进一步展示和挖掘她的个人技能或者成长因素。除了阶级认知外，文章似乎并未提及她自身的学习和进步。如果站在成年人的角度来看，以拥有和朋友不同的电脑型号，来概括和总结描述她青年时代的成见，似乎显得有些幼稚或者简单粗暴（我们很容易举出不少反例，例如精英人士使用戴尔，非富裕阶层使用苹果等，在中国这样的例子可能更多）。
此外，作为一个比较敏感的话题，提高自己“阶级认知”作为本文的立意虽然特别并能吸引眼球，但如果把握稍有不当，很容易被误解为简单的青少年嫉妒心理。
瑕不遮瑜，这篇文章的主题还是颇有巧思，文章带有非常个人化的视角和客观正面的思考，令人印象深刻。
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